As a giant disclaimer: Joe had surgery the day before the show and is totally loaded on pain killers for the whole thing. What this means to you is that this show is really NSFW since he drops the F-bomb about once a minute. If you are likely to be offended by a drug addled wanker talking about his balls, you may want to skip this one. Seriously.

In the news, Joe goes on to offend practitioners of some alternative forms of medicine, he offends Muslims by implying that they are preternaturally hypocritical, he also insults North Dakota by suggesting that they have a population of 12, he then goes on to offend people who wear adult diapers, he then scoffs at the WBC and finishes up by insulting Muslims for being hypocritical again. Shortly after the show he applied to be placed in the witness protection program.

In the main segment of the show, he promises to shut is trap, a promise that he does a poor job of keeping. While Lamar and Eli do a fine job unraveling the complicated bull-pucky that insulates abortion from actual discussion, Joe admits to purposefully saying things to piss off people on both sides of the argument. Roe vs. Wade is discussed: what it means and what provisions it requires to be challenged, Eli talks about the science behind the famous court decision and Lamar wraps the whole thing up with some insightful observations about the way we interact and what needs to happen before we're going to be able to put this discussion to rest. Joe slips in some more conversation about his balls.

Ok, in the middle of listening. I am not happy with ND getting this bill to define the start of life through the House. I guess I have been too focused on the national stuff, as I didn't realize it was going on and really I thought ND was better then this. So as I am here they can't blow me off as easily so its time to get some letters sent. So what I would ask is what should I be sure to put in my letter for maximum impact? Using a law to define something like this is nuts, but even just hearing it the implications are just way out there. Any help here is appreciated as I want to have as much punch and information on my side as possible.

I think it's a good idea to remove emotion, religion, and soul talk from the discussion of abortion. Challenging, difficult, and with most people probably impossible... but a good idea.

In around the 1 hr 13 min. mark of the podcast Eli mentions a passage in the Old Testament citing that if you cause a miscarriage (in other words an involuntary abortion) that it's not called murder, it's some other crime. I'm not sure that this is necessarily a good argument to bring to the table, because I can see a pro-life individual coming back with "it is a different crime because of the intent behind the action".
Similar to causing a fatal car accident - we don't call that murder because there was no intent to kill anyone, we call that involuntary manslaughter.

It seems to me that a discussion about abortion is actually a good platform to use to go into a discussion about preventative measures (or vice-versa maybe? If you are in a conversation with an individual who is against birth control and/or sex ed., bring abortion into the discussion. "Well, you don't want people to have abortions, right? So... this is a very effective way of preventing unwanted pregnancies, and therefore, abortions.") James Spader had a fun monologue about sex ed. - specifically education about the availability and effectiveness of condoms - in "Boston Legal".

As a side note: I love how you drop into talking in D&D terms with no explanation to non-gamers as to what you just said.

Actually the "ruling" here is muddled by Lamar's example. But There's also the fact that a child less than one month old has no temple value, there's a clear old testament separation in the death of the unborn and the death of the already born.

Intent is rarely taken into account in scriptural based law (especially hard-line talmudic and sharia), thus the victim of rape is seen as guilty of adultery, etc..

I have to confess, I was looking forward to a lot more vicodin-induced testicle humor than I actually got. I'm slightly disappointed by this. Therefore I will share a bit of local color from my beloved Austin, TX, where the most popular urologist for vasectomies is Dr. Richard Chopp. That's right: Dick Chopp. Here's a story about his technique.

I have to correct something you mentioned on this podcast ( I love your podcasts by the way). At least in the California Bay Area, the Catholic Diocese instituted on of the most comprehensive sex education programs in their schools in about 1985. It started in the second grade with good touch/bad touch and by the time they were in the eighth grade, they knew how the sex act was accomplished. There was an uproar from some of the parents when it was started, but they went ahead and did it anyway. I don't know how many diocese had the program, but (as an RN)I was very impressed and just needed to add the part about birth controls, and that 'other' sexualities between consenting adults is not a sin (etc, etc). The program is much more comprehensive than what I have seen in the public schools. I don't know if they continued the program in the current political climate since my children graduated in the mid 1990s.

I wish I was joking about this, but I really don't remember much of this show. What / who's comment was this in reference to? I do know that when I went to Catholic school in Portland, we had a good sex education program.

To this day I will never understand how the hell that flew with the Vatican, but there you have it. We learned about condoms and everything.